Friday, May 31, 2013

Sweet Corn Chowda

While browsing the web a few nights ago, I ran into this recipe. It's an indo-chinese sweet corn soup. I don't know much about indo-chinese foods, so I don't know if it is good or not but I know for what I was craving, it was lacking something. Coincidentally, a few days ago I picked up more corn than I usually do. It was local and on sale! So I knew I had to make an adaptation for tonight.



Sweet Corn Chowder 

Feeds: 2
Cooking time with prep: ~30 min.

You'll need:

3 ears of corn
half stalk of celery
2 spring onions
2 tbl corn starch in 4 tbl water
salt, pepper, smoked paprika (optional) , white pepper (optional), or cayenne (optional)
1 cup milk (I used unsweetened plain almond milk)
1 cup water (best to use the water your corn was boiled in) or veg stock
olive oil or coconut oil for a quick sauté

Prep:

Before you compose your chowder you'll need to boil or steam your ears of corn. I boiled them until they were tender. I let them finish in a pot of hot water while I finished prepping my veg.

I diced both the onions (using both green and white parts) and celery. You'll need roughly 2 tbl of celery and onion. You can do more onion to your taste preference, but I wouldn't suggest any more celery, since it has a strong flavour.

When your corn is done cooking and cooled down a bit, scrape the kernels from the cob. Puree about 2/3 of the kernels with a little water and set aside. Leave the other 1/3 whole. This is going to add great texture to your soup.

Prep your starch/water mix here too. In a small bowl mix 2 tbl corn starch with 4 tbl water. Mix well.

Compose:

Heat a medium soup pot (it needs to be able to hold about 3 cups of liquid) with your cooking oil of choice. You'll only need about 2 tbl of oil on a medium low heat.

Sauté your green onions until they turn a bright emerald color, roughly 2 min. Making sure to stir them around, you'll want to keep them moving.

Add the celery and sauté for an additional 2-3 minutes. Then add your corn puree, making sure to stir everything together. Add your 1 cup milk and 1 cup corn water/stock and season with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cayenne, or white pepper to taste and bring to a boil.

Let it boil for roughly 2-3 min and then add your kernels, making sure to return your soup to a boil. Cook for an additional 2-3 min.

Turn down your heat to low and add your starch/water mix (mix it well before you add it). You'll want to let this thicken for a bit. I cooked it an additional 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve: 

Ladle into your favorite bowl and enjoy! I topped mine with a little dollop of sour cream but you can keep it vegan and add a little chopped green onion. I also paired my chowder with some steamed kale. About half way through eating, I put all my kale in with the chowder and devoured it.

Lately I've been about calorie counting and trying to shed some pounds, so I entered this on myfitnesspal and it totaled in around 296 kcal per serving. This can be altered by the amount of oil you use.


To new beginnings!

This should have happened a long time ago. I grew up in a food centric house and Kyle has an amazing ability to turn very few ingredients into a delicious meal; it's time we own who we are: Foodies. After a recent bout of eliminating a lot of great foods from my diet, due to allergies, cooking from scratch has been of the utmost importance. With my main allergy being gluten and chickpeas (and Kyle being able to eat everything... LUCKY!) I've had to turn to cookbooks and other blogs to find tasty dishes. Thus begun the days of learning to cook from scratch, like, really from scratch.

My recent recipe scavenger hunts have been on Pinterest. What I have found is that I have a horrible ability to follow recipes (unless its baking) and that most suffer from Goldilocks syndrome. Either they have too much of something or not enough of another, rarely are they just right. I know a lot of people who have gluten allergy, like myself, and can sometimes have a hard time figuring out what too cook. That's where this blog comes in. Some parts are selfish, like wanting to chronicle what works and what doesn't but also I want to make it easy for you, the reader. I want to contribute easy, delicious meals that anyone can put together.

Now Kyle on the other hand is a Chef. He doesn't follow measurements or recipes and has a gift of creating dishes on the fly. That's where I come in. I want to take his tasty creations and make them easy for you to make at home.

So, we hope you enjoy this tasty journey with us! Guaranteed to be delicious and easy, all you need is an appetite and a good knife!

Cheers!

Biscuits & Gravy